Remediation of oil spill-contaminated sands by chemical-free microbubbles generated in tap and saline water

• Main Authors: Sun, Huifang, Liu, Hang, Wang, Siyu, Liu, Yu
• Other Authors: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: 2021
• Subjects: Engineering::Environmental engineering; Remediation; Oil Spill-contamination
• Online Access: https://hdl.handle.net/10356/151422
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Oil spill-contaminated sands caused by marine oil spillage could severely impact aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems. In this work, self-collapsing microbubbles (MBs)-based method was explored as a chemical free approach for remediation of oil spill-contaminated sands. Tap water and saline water with 32 g/L of sodium chloride were employed as the media to generate MBs. Results showed that almost all oils were removed from the oil spill-contaminated sands after the 40-min treatment with MBs generated in tap water. The oil removal efficiency of MBs in saline water was slightly lower than that in tap water, while more than 90% of oil removal efficiency was still achieved after the 40-min treatment. The analyses by FTIR and UV spectra further confirmed the oil removal from oil spill-contaminated sands by MBs. Consequently, self-collapsing MBs showed a great potential as an environmentally friendly technology for high-efficiency remediation of oil spill-contaminated sands.